Letter of the Week

Planet Rugby readers are never short of an opinion and our mail box is seldom empty. Referees have been the centre of attention.

Planet Rugby readers are never short of an opinion and our mail box is seldom empty. Referees have been the centre of attention over the last fortnight, with mud being hurled in all directions.

Well, we got an interesting letter from a reader – who just happens to be a referee – who thinks the growing trend of slagging off match officials is unbecoming of the traditions of our game. Robert Burns says the number of referees leaving the game is at an all time high as a result…

The referee is an easy target
By Robert Burns

During this and the last Rugby World Cup we have seen a growing trend of supporters, commentators, fans and team officials giving the referee a hard time for the decisions they have made, and for me, this trend is very worrying.

One of the major positives that Rugby has over Football (Soccer to some) is the behaviour of our fans. Our fans are allowed to have a beer in the ground, our fans are allowed to sit next to a supporter of the opposite team without trying to club each other to death, our fans can enjoy banter with each other while supporting their team to the end. Privileges that have been long removed from our round ball brethren.

However, when our teams lose, there seems to be a relentless wish to blame the referee, regardless of how our teams performed. Why has our game become like this?

The Referee is but one person, with a couple of assistants (when played at higher levels), they have the ability to see incidents only once, and at full speed. They have to make their decisions based on that one viewing. And yes, sometimes they get it wrong. They are but only human!

Let's equate a referee error to that of a players shall we? A good team will generally knock the ball on at least four times in an average game. This is a minor frustrating error from the team, the referee generally will not make any mistakes on who gets the scrum, occasionally they may miss a knock on, such is life, as school kids we are told 'play to the whistle'.

When it comes to penalties, this is where the issues arise. A penalty can be just that, or it can give a team a chance at a kick at goal, or possibly give the infringing team a yellow or red card. But the referee, as they do all game, is doing their best to help the teams not to infringe, they will tell offside players to push back, they will tell a player who is ahead of the kicker to drop, they will tell the players when they need to take their hands off it. This is called preventative refereeing, or in modern terms, management.

There are though some offences where the referee cannot prevent the offence from happening, a player running at the half-back early and tackling him may possibly do this too quickly for the referee to stop the offence, in this case the referee has no option but to award the penalty, or if possible, play advantage.

The point is, the referee at no time is wanting to penalise one team or another, they are there to simply enforce the laws.

A TV Referee (i.e. Rugby World Cup, Super Rugby, Aviva Premiership, etc) is really in a no win situation when it comes to refereeing at these levels. Spectators and teams call for consistency in the refereeing performances, but rarely are consistent as a team in not offending. If a referee blows for every offence, they are accused of making the game all about them and not letting it flow, if they don't blow enough, they are accused of letting the game develop into a farce. If they apply the law correctly, they are accused of being inconsistent. It's a very difficult job, I hope you'll agree.

The referees are told to blow for 'Clear and Obvious' offences. Please note this is clear and obvious to them at full speed during the game with the one look they get, not clear and obvious to everyone else who has seen ten different angles at four different speeds. There is a big difference.

So nowadays when a team loses a game, all to often the referee is pointed at as the reason why they lost it. It had nothing to do with the team's errors, and all to do with what is often one incident in which the referee had to make that split second call.

The big problem is that the blaming of the referee seems to now have become automatic for a losing team, especially where the score is very tight. But this behaviour travels through the levels, and it's getting harder and harder for referees at grassroots levels to turn up week in and week out.

The number of referees leaving the game because the abuse from spectators, coaches and players is at an all time high, and until we turn this trend back to where the game was about what the 30 players on the pitch do, and not what the one person on the pitch does, it's only going to get worse. That means your game of rugby may be cancelled next week because your referee has had enough, or worse still, it will be refereed by one of the team, who doesn't really know what they are doing, and someone may get seriously hurt.

Lets look at the most famous games where referees have been the target of abuse.

RWC 2007 – New Zealand v France – Wayne Barnes:

Wayne Barnes received everything from death threats, to vile postings of what people would do to him if they ever saw him because the pass that lead to France scoring the winning try was forward.

The fact that NZ had 71 percent of possession and 63 percent of territory was over looked and ignored. The fact that NZ had 8 minutes and 10 seconds in France's 22 to France's 2 minutes 7 seconds in theirs was seemingly irrelevant.
The fact that the All Blacks had 10 handling errors, conceded 7 penalties and had a player sin binned because of this, was also not relevant to why they lost the game.

It was far easier to blame Wayne Barnes for a pass that neither he nor his assistant referees saw as forward in their single full speed look.

Because of this one incident it has now become a national sport in New Zealand to criticise anything that Wayne Barnes does.

If you doubt my Statistics, see them here.

RWC 2011 – South Africa v Samoa – Nigel Owens:

Nigel Owens received a tirade of abuse and accusations from Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu about being biased and racist, and that this was the reason why Samoa had lost the game.

The game had been amazingly close with Samoa pushing the World Champions to the edge, but they were reduced to 14 men when a report from Assistant Referee Stuart Terheege recommended a Red Card for Paul Williams after he struck the head of an opponent.

The fact that the recommendation came from the assistant referee didn't stop the tirade, there was no evidence of bias or racism from Nigel Owens, and Fuimaono-Sapolu was given a suspended sentence, with part of the requirements being he takes a recognised referees course.

RWC 2011 – South Africa v Australia –